The Meta

me-time

I took some me-time/fam-time this past weekend. I spent a little time being a kid in her 20s, which is what I am. Sometimes people forget that.

I drove down to L.A. on Wednesday. I’m really lucky in that my husband gets along with my family and I get along with all the in-laws I’ve met so far. Just before I left, my dad asked us if we were going to come down for Christmas and the husband said “sure” without sarcasm.

(None of my family members have met any of my in-laws. I would need a note-taker at my side at all times to document the hilarity if and when that were to happen. Loud, short-tempered, blunt and yet excessively polite around strangers Koreans meet quieter but still chattychatty Israeli Jews with European manners. Are you laughing yet?)

My dad’s new girlfriend is a very good cook so the husband and I had some really great home-cooked meals. She packed a spare ice chest full of jars of kimchee and various Korean pickled veggies and freezer bags of marinated beef for us to take home. I’m a decent cook but she’s got mad skills.

My dad also prepared this Korean ground bean and powder honey stuff for me. Apparently you dissolve a spoonful in milk to drink and it’s good to treat thinning hair. My dad’s already seen some regrowth and his friend’s lashes scrape his glasses now. My dad knows my already fine hair tends to fall out when I stress out so he bought me a lot of this stuff. I also got his excellent fruit smoothie recipe. Oh, and his aviators. Hee.

Speaking of hair, I stopped by this beauty shop on Larchmont, after stopping by my favorite sushi place for lunch, and *finally* got myself a bottle of Klorane’s dry shampoo. This stuff is amazing! I have thin, fine hair that gets greasy quickly. I shower around 7:30am every day and often looks just-barely-not-quite-disgusting by 7:30pm and of course it goes downhill from there. It’s a white spray but the color disappears against my dark brown hair once you comb it through.

Both my brother and a cousin who is practically another brother to me are deep in college prep mode–the former to start, the latter to transfer. We had some long talks and it was good to get my mind off of my own crap and feel sorta useful at the same time. It was also good to remind myself of how lucky I am to a. know what I want to do with my life and b. be past college. I mean, college was great but the roller coaster of uncertainty, cockiness, fear, and carelessness can only be ridden for so long.

…

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what my next steps will be. I’m usually not so indecisive but I’m going a little crazy trying to figure out what to do. I haven’t sold any dresses yet. It’s incredibly embarrassing. I got a couple of rejection emails, but I think mainly I just couldn’t break into the buyers’ fortress. Should I keep pushing through? Should I just move on to my next collection? I can’t decide whether this collection really sucked mad donkey balls or my business decisions have been poor. I’m pretty angry with myself but mostly I’m just trying to unravel this knot I’m in. Grr. There are not enough hours in the day to just think, ya know? Don’t worry though; my mindset has improved immensely. I’ve gone from, “I’m a farking failure” to “How do I get myself out of the mess I’ve made of things?”. Probably explains the 3 weeks of migraines.

Zoe, I know you’ll keep pushing forward, always onward and upward. You have a VERY DISTINCT fashion “voice”–a very clear, strong point of view, and that is a GREAT strength and something you should be extremely proud of. Too many fledgling brands play it safe and try to do what everyone else is doing, and though it might give them some initial selling power, sooner or later they gotta find their own unique voice, or get out of the way! You my friend will NEVER have that problem.

Listen, as you know, it is a rough time out there right now at just about every level of retail, including designer/luxury now–I know from doing my own homework re: launching my line that the market is tough, even for the big guys. Buyers are getting pretty tight with their open-to-buys and they’re not giving the clothes too much time on the floor; if stuff doesn’t have a strong sell-through, fast, those lines are getting dropped, where in previous years, the stores might give young lines a little more time to catch on out on the selling floor. And just imagine what those deadly chargebacks are doing to the young lines out there right now—yikes. Almost makes one glad to not be tangling with the bigger stores right now, no?

I say keep going, Zoe–just shoot for getting ONE great little store to carry a few of your pieces, and grow in small steady steps each season; keep refining your work, your production quality, what have you; so that by the time the market swings back in your favor (and it will) you’ll have worked out some of the kinks that just about every line experiences in its first seasons, and you’ll probably find that you’ve developed a good little following, too!

And when all else fails, remember what Winston Churchill liked to say: “K.B.O.—Keep buggering on!!!

Dear Zoe, Patricia is right.
I myself was on my first season last year in September. I payed 2000 Euros for a show stand in Milan and got an order for 5 (!!) dresses. I made them in a close to me atelier, fortunately I have found similar fabric at one of the city stores (I don’t think any suppliers would have sold me 20 mt of fabric). Now, at my 3rd season things aren’t much greater, I got orders for 15 dresses😉
it’s hard, nobody said it would be easy, or as my best friend puts it: “nobody said there’s a meal in the price of the ticket”. I get occasional jobs, collaborations, and thank my husband for his patience, as all the money is going into “the fashion business”. Nevertheless, I keep going to the fabric shows, and create a new collection for every season. So should you. Sooner or later the doors will open, it’s just our luck to live in these not so “fashion fortunate” times.
do you remember Charlotte’s famous visits to the Rabbi’s? well, imagine, that commercial success is a Rabbi too.🙂
take care!